The Hydro Advantage

Via MuniWireless, an LAT story on an unexpected problem with rolling out muniwifi in Southern California: the electrical utility wants its several pounds of flesh:

â€œWeâ€™ve had almost a full year of discussions with Edison that havenâ€™t really gotten us anywhere,â€ Desforges said. â€œTheyâ€™re always very friendly and theyâ€™re not saying no, but theyâ€™re not moving forward either.â€ The closest Edison could come to a resolution, he said, was to suggest that the city could pay what cellphone carriers pay to attach antennas to utility poles â€” as much as $2,000 a month per pole. MetroFi, in contrast, said that it pays other utilities an average of $36 a year per pole.

While Toronto Hydro did apparently have issues with not enough poles in some areas, at least it owned the poles it needed to use.